Digby Chambers: 25 Old Christchurch Road, Flats 1-15 Digby Chambers and 2-10 (Evens) Post Office Road

Digby Chambers, formerly Bedford Buildings, is a speculative development erected in 1887 by architects George Joseph Lawson and John Donkin. The building has been subsequently altered, with repairs and refurbishment undertaken in the early 21st century.

The building is constructed with a steel frame and facades of brick and stone beneath slate roofs, with dressings of stone, brick and terracotta. It is oriented roughly north-south along Post Office Road, with its southern face fronting Old Christchurch Road. The plan is irregular, comprising a long north-south block with a roughly east-west block at its northern end.

The four-storey building with cellars and attics is characterised by tall elevations in Victorian Gothic style, with prominent features emphasising each end. At the southern end, the ground floor features a pair of arched shop windows with carved ballflower style decoration to the springing points and spandrels. The timber-framed windows are early 21st century replacements. Above these are eight-light stone windows at the first, second and third floors, divided at each level by projecting stringcourses and carved terracotta inset panels with slightly Art Nouveau style detailing. These panels are repeated around the building. The windows are framed by full-height brick pilasters which continue through the cornice to frame a gable at the apex, which appears partially rebuilt and contains a mid-20th century metal-framed window. The deeply-projecting cornice has moulded sections and a continuous row of angled dentils, continuing around the full street-facing length of the building.

As the building turns the corner it is angled. The ground floor has an entrance with early 21st century timber and glazed door, flanked by angled pillars with foliate-carved capitals and a moulded arched head with decorated pendant-style keystone and fan vaulting. A canted oriel window rises through the upper three storeys with tracery in loosely Perpendicular style featuring cusped detailing, standing proud of the timber sashes behind, with further terracotta panels between each floor. It is unclear whether the oriel was ever capped at roof level by the turret or cupola as originally intended.

The ground floor of the long eastern elevation contains a row of seven wide pointed-arch shop front openings with deeply-moulded heads and 20th century timber windows, with a continuous stringcourse above. Each bay of the upper floors contains full-height window bays framed by slender brick pilasters which connect at sill level by inverted arches formed in stone. The windows are wide timber sashes with tracery detailing in flattened ogee heads of stone and terracotta. Above the cornice at roof level, the bays terminate in a row of tall dormer windows in moulded openings with early 21st century timber casements in Y-tracery frames. Between the dormers are low brick arches connecting the slender piers that flank the windows.

At the northern end of this elevation the building projects eastwards. At ground-floor level the original entrance (to the YWCA, now Flats 1-15) and shop fronts have been altered. The connection with the main block has a bay of single windows; those at first and second floor are set back beneath a squinch arch in the angle with a pointed stone head. Adjacent are two window bays with the same brick framing treatment as the remainder of the building, though the windows themselves are in stone traceried surrounds. Above the first-floor windows are stone panels with intricate carved detailing. The central bay rises to a dormer window, adjacent to which is a truncated chimney. The gabled end bay facing east is asymmetrical, with a pair of window bays of the same treatment rising to a wide gable above. The gable itself has two pairs of windows on two levels with a central feature of projecting angled bricks rising from the cornice to a truncated stack.

The entrance to Flats 1-15 opens onto a lobby with a pointed-arched doorway featuring engaged columns with foliate and floral carved capitals, a pair of doors with three lights with cusped heads to the top half and panelling below, and a fanlight with a roundel pattern. The main staircase has turned newels and balusters; one section features panels with pierced flower decoration between the balusters. A lift has been inserted in the open well.

The remainder of the interior is plain and not of special interest, with many areas altered and modernised. Shop premises have been refitted.